Bakuman III episode 8: plagiarism at its finest

Classroom of Truth, the Treasure submission by Nanamine Tooru, is somewhat what Takagi thought of as an unorthodox battle manga. In the end, the story is so great that it causes a fuss all around the editorial department, however since it isn’t suited for Jack it doesn’t win the contest, and Tooru ends up writing another manga, this time one that was suited for Jack. He then asks if he can meet with Ashirogi Muto, and finally shows his true colours when his editor leaves, demonstrating how much of an ambitious asshole he is. He also explains to them that his manga comes from opinions of many talented people, which makes his work a fraud.

Impression

Careful guys, here comes Yagami Light.

He might not control a Death Note or have a weird Shinigami following him, but he definitely has the mind and the twisted ambition that Light had, and I can definitely see the same style in Nanamine Tooru than I saw in Takeshi and Tsugumi’s other famous work.

Once again, we are shown exactly in animation what an unorthodox battle manga is. With Classroom of Truth, we had a glimpse of the style, and with Nanamine Tooru’s appearance, we find out just exactly what a battle without a battle looks like. Rivalry, desire to win over the person no matter what, and psychological warfare is definitely there. Mmmm, smells like Death Note.

I often wonder up to what point Takeshi and Tsugumi refer themselves in this show/manga. It’s obvious that some things are made up and some things come from their own experiences, but I wish I knew where the line was. I loved seeing this episode for so many things, one of them being that I got to go inside a famous mangaka’s head to learn how they came up with something big. It’s Bakuman’s main selling point, and the authors do it incredibly well, without losing the epic feel of an anime.

Nanamine Tooru is one hell of a character. Epically evil, this guy knows how to plagiarize, and even more how to get away with it in the most amazing way, even providing shortcuts in the meantime. He’s a brainiac, and I can’t wait to see how Ashirogi Muto will go against him. I know Takagi is very smart, however we haven’t really seen him think outside of manga and studies quite yet, and so I don’t know just how good he is at mind games. I guess we’ll see that in the episodes to come…

Finally, to come up with a character like Nanamine Tooru so late in the anime makes me wonder how many episodes he will stay for. He’s obviously a cheating bastard who can’t write manga by himself, and looking at next episode, Ashirogi Muto will try to get people to figure out how much of an asshole he is; which means that the rivalry against authors shouldn’t last too long.